— [All the characters] inhabit a real world, thanks to Raphaé Memon’s elegantly restrained design, using packing crates, a washing line and a rather troubling tree (which opens festooned with manacles and a noose) to suggest the lost world of a plantation — OPERISSIMA

— Tin Pan Alley meets Wagner in rare Scott Joplin outing — THE GUARDIAN

— Director Cecilia Stinton and set/costume designer Raphaé Memon succeed in creating a credible, somewhat homey - and homely - community, by means of a few wooden crates and a paper tree-sculpture — OPERA TODAY

— An absolute winner…rises impressively to the high notes — THE STAGE

— Joplin created something that has more than a touch of Hamilton in the eclecticism of its inspiration and the musicality that informs every note. Never in my lifetime have we needed to listen to Joplin’s message more urgently — BROADWAY WORLD

Treemonisha was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in a New Opera Production in the Broadway World UK Awards.

Scott Joplin’s all-singing, all-dancing piece fusing African-American spirituals, barbershop and early blues. Arkansas, 1884: the black community is free from the bonds of slavery, but true self-government has been hard to achieve. Superstition and fake news pervade the fractured community and it falls to the young heroine, Treemonisha, to speak truth to power and lead her elders towards enlightened thinking.

Performances from 27 – 31 August 2019 at Arcola Theatre, London

Spectra Ensemble at Grimeborn Opera Festival 2019

Music Director | MATTHEW LYNCH

Director | CECILIA STINTON

Set & Costume Designer | RAPHAÉ MEMON

Lighting Designer | ALI HUNTER

Choreographer | ESTER RUDHART

Images © Robert Workman